NBC, which lost rights to broadcast NFL games in 1998, is expected to aggressively pursue a new deal to air games beginning in 2006.

While the NFL has locked up deals for Sunday afternoon games until 2011, still up for grabs are rights deals for Monday Night Football and a new package that will air Thursday and Saturday games for the last seven weeks of the season beginning in 2006.

NBC Universal has already shown “deep interest” in either wresting Monday night games from ABC, or doing a deal for the Thursday-Saturday package, which could be aired on NBC’s USA cable network, according to a source close to the talks.

A spokesperson for NBC Sports declined to comment.

Until losing the rights to NFL games six years ago, the network had aired games since 1964.

NBC has been adamant that it is not interested in paying exorbitant rights fees, which usually cause a network to lose money on the games, but benefit from promoting other programming.

But NBC – the onetime primetime king – has seen its ratings slip this fall with the loss of hit shows such as “Friends” and “Frasier.”

“I’d be shocked if they didn’t aggressively go after one of these deals,” said Dean Bonham, who owns the Bonham Group, a Denver-based sports consultancy.

“I think NBC clearly would be better off to have an image association with a product like the NFL. There are a lot of benefits,” Bonham said.

“But I wouldn’t necessarily expect them to be successful. I still don’t know if they’re willing to step up to the plate and write the kind of check the NFL wants.”

On Monday, the NFL announced that Fox and CBS had agreed to extensions of their respective rights packages – which allow them to air Sunday afternoon games.

Meanwhile, the NFL extended its Sunday Ticket package with DirecTV. The three deals were valued at $11.5 billion, a 40-percent jump over the prior contracts. ABC pays the NFL about $550 million a year to air Monday night games, and analysts estimate the network loses some $170 million a year on that deal.

While speculation has been rampant that ABC might choose to drop Monday Night Football, George Bodenheimer, who helms both ABC Sports and ESPN, which are both owned by Walt Disney Co., said through a spokesman that the company plans to renew deals for ABC’s Monday Night Football and for ESPN’s deal to air Sunday night games.

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Turf war

NBC is expected to battle to broadcast NFL games, but it will face a tough opponent in ABC, which now airs “Monday Night Football.”